Redstone Science Fiction is “publishes quality stories from across the science fiction spectrum. We are interested in everything from post-cyberpunk to new space opera. . . .” I’m honored that it’s once again chosen one of my photos as its monthly cover art:

As you can tell, this is a rather grim image of Tokyo. I took this photograph during the third week of May, last year. Redstone Science Fiction Editor Mike Ray (yes, I know Mike) writes in pertinent part in this month’s Editor’s Note:

His intense photo of Tokyo makes an outstanding cover. Richard has a lifelong devotion to Japan and the Japanese people, and in the weeks since the devastating earthquake and tsunami he has worked to provide information about Japan, encourage positive action, and to counteract misinformation. I encourage you to visit his website, LetsJapan.Worpress.Com, to get a point of view about what’s happening in Japan that is quite different from, and far more encouraging than, what we get from the news channels. [I would add that this post, from about 10 days ago, helps make that point. Anyway, I truly thank Mike and Redstone Science Fiction for these words and all the meaning behind them].

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Another one of the images Redstone Science Fiction has used was much more colorful and, if a little on the sterile side, is not necessarily “ominous” (this one from Kyoto Station, taken in the autumn of 2009):

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Please allow me to note for the record that Tokyo is not, in fact, a grim place. That photo was just a photographer’s mischievous imagineering, a purposeful twisting of an image to, indeed, make it depict close to the opposite of what I was actually seeing through the viewfinder as a clicked. Thing is (to paraphrase Penn & Teller), I’ll tell you when I’m twisting and lying about the truth, as opposed to, say, many a contemporary journalist. I met Penn once. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He was kind of a jerk in person. But, you know, I still respect his craft.

Back to Redstone Science Fiction, and Tokyo. As mentioned, Tokyo’s not grim at all. In fact, it’s kind of like the world’s biggest amusement park. I’m not sure why anyone would want to go to into Tokyo Disneyland when outside, in Tokyo Tokyoland, is altogether fascinating and so altogether real, and surreal.

Here’s a kinder, and altogether more honest photo of one little sliver of Tokyo which I took on the same day and from the same hotel (the Shinagawa Prince), just looking in a different direction as that featured cover photo:

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Here’s a little vid (from my YouTube channel) I shot in the Yurakucho District of Chiyoda Ward of Tokyo, in front of the famous Bic Camera store. See, bright and upbeat, not grim at all: